


Invisible Threads

by inquisitor_tohru



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Armitage Hux Lives, Bisexual Armitage Hux, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Healing, Force-Sensitive Armitage Hux, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Poe Dameron/Finn, Kissing, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23697550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/pseuds/inquisitor_tohru
Summary: When Rey uses the Force to heal Hux's blaster wounds, they discover some unintended side effects.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rey
Comments: 10
Kudos: 70
Collections: May the 4th Be With You Star Wars Fanworks Exchange 2020





	Invisible Threads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spaceyquill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceyquill/gifts).



> I've been kinda intrigued by this pairing since reading one (1) reylux fic back in the few months after TFA was released, and your wonderfully hilarious prompt about the sand gremlin and the uptight superiority complex urged me to give it a shot. I'm glad I did, and _hopefully_ you'll feel the same way!

_"Invisible threads are the strongest ties."_

\- Friedrich Nietzsche

* * *

Hux's last thoughts before the darkness carried him away were of a woman he'd never met. A woman who'd ruined everything he'd worked for, time and time again, whose face was little more than a freckled blur in his mind...yet she was his only hope. Perhaps, then, it was fate that when he finally opened his eyes, hers was the first face he looked upon.

Slivers of light shone through the jungle canopy, and while he could have ended up on any number of jungle planets, he had an unpleasant hunch about this one. He felt a hand on his thigh and tried to swat it away, only to discover his own hand wouldn't move the way he wanted it to.

"I'm sorry if it's uncomfortable, but it'll just be for a moment." _The scavenger._ He winced as the flesh around the blaster wound rippled, as though there were cockroaches scuttling beneath his skin, but when he dared to look down, his thigh was smooth and unmarked. He'd never imagined the Force could be used in such a way.

"We're running out of medical supplies," Rey explained. "And beds." He was groggy after waking, but she looked exhausted, overwhelmed, and he was suddenly aware of how clammy her hand felt.

"Ah. Sorry." She quickly moved her hand away from his leg, as if she'd only just noticed it was still there. At first Hux didn't say anything - there wasn't much he had to say to her. There was only one thing he needed to know.

"Kylo Ren…" His voice was weak, his throat felt like sandpaper, and he had to force the words out. But that was inconsequential. He _needed_ to know.

"Gone," Rey said softly. There was something odd about her expression, but before Hux could ask for all the juicy details of Ren's defeat, he drifted back into unconsciousness.

* * *

Running water was a luxury Rey didn't think she'd ever get used to. She splashed her face a couple of times to get rid of what Rose had affectionately referred to as her "Ajan Kloss glow" after she'd (equally affectionately) commented on Rose's "slick" hair. Somehow Finn managed to look infuriatingly immaculate, even in the humidity of the jungle. Apparently this gave him the right to lecture her about hygiene, though he'd said nothing about all the times Poe wiped his brow with the same rag he'd used to wipe the mud off his ship.

To be fair, Finn had a point, as she was working with the wounded. So she'd made sure to use disinfectant, wear a clean gown over her clothes, and use the proper equipment. There'd been a lot of people who questioned whether Hux ought to be entitled to Resistance resources, and she understood why. She just didn't agree.

Nothing Hux could do would ever erase the suffering he'd inflicted upon billions, but that didn't mean what he could do didn't matter. Besides, he'd helped Finn, Chewie, and Poe - that mattered. Even if it was, _allegedly_ , no more than an attempt to ensure Kylo Ren's loss. One of the most important things Rey had learned was that people lie, most of all to themselves.

"You holding up okay?" Poe shuffled over to the sink next to her, turned on the tap, and began washing his hands. Perhaps Finn did get to him after all.

"Just tired." She managed a smile when she caught Poe checking his hair in the small, grease-stained mirror.

"I know you've probably heard this all morning, but don't push yourself too hard, alright?" Something in his tone suggested he knew full well that she'd do as she pleased, but she _did_ appreciate his concern. Besides, Poe never took his own advice anyway. The two of them weren't so different, and Rey hadn't been surprised to hear that he'd been the one to insist on going back for Hux. She doubted Finn and Chewie objected _too_ much. In Finn's case it would have been perfectly understandable, all things considered, but he didn't like killing...or leaving people to die. Even when he spoke of Phasma's death, she sensed no pleasure in that particular memory.

"Won't do anything you wouldn't do." Poe grinned and shook his head, a few more curls falling out of place, as she made her way back to her patient.

* * *

Hux wasn't sure how long he'd been unconscious. The light was beginning to fade as the sun set, but he couldn't be certain whether hours or days had passed. He did recall his current location, with a groan, which prompted a chuckle from the woman sitting by his gurney. Dark brown eyes and freckles. _Her_ again.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" Hux coughed. He tried to ignore the soreness of his throat, and that his tongue felt too big for his mouth. "Perhaps you could wash your hair." Her expression indicated that his suggestion had somehow been _amusing_ to her. Some people simply took no pride in their appearance.

"Perhaps I should fetch you a mirror, and then you can decide whether you're really in a position to be giving _me_ advice about _my_ hair." He reluctantly raised his hand - ungloved, he now realised - to his head, finding a mass of tangled hair, much longer and much greasier than he ever remembered it being. "I'm just here to make sure that there are no...side effects." Hux wrinkled his nose. Of _course_ there were likely to be side effects. Nothing ever went well for him where the Force was concerned. Such sorcery was a relic of a bygone era that ought, frankly, to have remained in the past. The Knights of Ren, trudging through the dirt and leaving it smeared across the freshly polished floors of his star destroyers, were no _true_ knights. For if they _were_ , they would embody the virtues of order and self-discipline.

"You seem fine," Rey continued, stepping forward to examine his previously scarred skin. He flinched when she placed a hand on his chest. "Did that hurt?"

"I- no. I'm fine." She could probably sense his heart racing, or the slight tremor in his hands. Yes, that was _probably_ how the Force worked, if she wasn't already reading his mind and delving into his most personal memories.

"Okay, good." She smiled awkwardly, but he couldn't bring himself to do the same. He dug his nails into his palms, and it was only when she walked away that he realised they were smeared with blood.

* * *

The following morning Rey was startled awake by what sounded like blasterfire. Still bleary-eyed, she grasped for her saber but did not find it at her hip. What she did find, as she glanced around, was that she appeared to be in a small attic room, filled with various boxes of junk. The noise that had woken her was nothing more than the rattling of rain against a nearby window.

A dream, then. Or perhaps a vision?

Upon closer inspection, some of the boxes contained things resembling the old Imperial debris one was likely to find on Jakku, though much of it was unfamiliar to her. Other pieces were recognisable as scrapped droid parts, so old and mismatched that she wouldn't have known where to begin with them. Clearly someone did, though, as she soon spotted the half-finished droid in the corner of the room, wires patched over with electrical tape. The faceplate was a smooth, polished black, like a bizarre jewel sitting on top of a rusted, one armed battle droid carcass. She reached out with the Force, thinking about how it was the kind of room she'd dreamed of as a child, squirrelled away in the Jakku wreckage with her desert treasures.

Then she sensed it. Sorrow, intermingling with a fear that made her skin itch. Sorrow and fearfulness clung to the four walls of that room, so much so that Rey began to weep. Just whose room _was_ this? Judging by the size of the bed, whoever slept here was a young child. Looking back towards the partly assembled droid, she found herself torn between impressed and disturbed. She sat on the edge of the bed, her knees almost reaching her chest, and as she waited for the waves of anguish to be washed away, she noticed a short auburn hair on the pillow.

On the other side of the Resistance Base, Armitage Hux woke up to a raging sandstorm.

* * *

Even through the grit in the air, Hux couldn't fail to recognise those dunes. He'd visited Jakku with his father as a child, after being spirited away from the siege of Arkanis. It hadn't been a particularly _pleasant_ visit, but he hadn't been subjected to a faceful of sand. Just his father, Gallius Rax, and a ragtag group of orphans with a penchant for violence.

He might not remember how he got here this time, but, frankly, he quite fancied his chances with the sandstorm.

Scanning his surroundings to the best of his ability, he managed to spot some goggles that looked as if they could have been salvaged from an Imperial Stormtrooper helmet. They didn't quite fit, and did nothing to improve the limited visibility, but not having sand in his eyes was certainly a good start. There wasn't anything else useful on the makeshift workbench, and his instincts urged him northeast. As he battled against the elements, it wasn't long before he could just about make out a familiar colossal structure - the _Ravager_. Or at least what was left of it. It was slow going, but Hux forced himself to keep walking until he reached the dreadnought's wreckage and scuttled inside like a skittermouse.

He slumped against the least flimsy-looking sheet of durasteel, his head in his hands, trying to remember how he got here, and to shake off the feeling of being watched. The very notion was ridiculous - nobody would be stupid enough to _voluntarily_ head out into a sandstorm like that.

It was possible that someone else had taken shelter within the wreckage of the _Ravager_ ...but Imperial _Executor_ -class Star Destroyers were easy to get lost in, if one didn't know their way around. Dozens of corridors sprawled throughout the ruined starship, twisted but intact. Even someone with Hux's knowledge of such starships would struggle to navigate them in their current state. Outside, the storm raged on, the sound of sand against metal deafening. So deafening, in fact, that he was unaware of the person standing beside him until he felt the weight of a hand on his shoulder.

"We need to talk. Now."

* * *

Rey's hand was steady as she poured tea, but she couldn't pretend that what just happened hadn't shaken her. The last time she'd experienced anything remotely similar had been with Kylo Ren, when they'd communicated across great distances with the Force, slipping in and out of one another's realities. There had been times when the Force had revealed his memories to her, but she'd never found herself _in_ them. There was one other major difference, too.

Hux was not Force-sensitive.

At least, that's what Rey had _thought_ \- but how else could she explain this? The Force had reeled around Kylo Ren, and when she was near Finn, she sensed the unique ripple of the Force around him. Now that she thought about it, she didn't sense much of anything from Hux, and that wasn't _normal._ Even people who weren't attuned to the Force ought to have ties to the world around them, but where there should have been a flurry of connections, she found only an eerie stillness.

"I suppose I was foolish to think I could escape from that kind of…" Hux waved an accusatory hand. "Invasion."

"I didn't do it on purpose," Rey said, careful to keep her tone even. She didn't even want to imagine what he might have experienced serving under Snoke or Kylo Ren. "And it wasn't just me. _That's_ what we need to talk about. Something must have happened when I healed you-"

"No shit." Despite the situation, she almost laughed. Coming from Hux's prim and proper lips, it _was_ kind of funny.

"-but it could only have happened if you were...well, maybe not _strong_ in the Force." She doubted he could move a pebble, let alone lift rocks. But, as Leia had both explained and demonstrated to her on multiple occasions, there were other ways the Force could manifest. Finn's strengths were also different to her own. " _Sensitive_ to it."

Rey wasn't entirely sure quite what she'd expected from Hux, but the sight of him laughing was possibly the strangest thing she'd seen all day.

"B- Kylo Ren couldn't sense your thoughts easily." She continued to raise her voice over his outburst. "You were able to act as a spy without his knowledge." Hux's laughter died down.

"He was distracted, that's all. Nigh on _obsessed_ with Sith relics and... _you._ " Rey swallowed, her throat dry.

"I'm willing to bet there were other times when you acted without his knowledge. Or Snoke's." Hux shrugged, but Rey could sense that he was beginning to falter in his conviction.

"They underestimated me."

"Yes," she said quietly. "I daresay they did." There was a long pause, during which Rey took the opportunity to gulp down her lukewarm tea. She noticed Hux's own cup was untouched.

"What now?"

"I'm...not sure. This isn't entirely familiar territory for me either. I suppose we'll have to try to work this out together somehow." It wasn't exactly a prospect she relished, but she'd endured far worse than this and survived.

"You found me in the Starship Graveyard, but you said that you experienced one of my memories." Rey nodded. That had been a bad day - the storm meant she'd had to leave parts valuable enough to get her a week's worth of rations. "What was it?"

"It was more of a _where_ , really. An attic room. Lots of droid parts and scrap. It was raining...a lot." He smiled at that last comment, nothing like the maniacal laughter he'd subjected her to earlier. Just a nice, normal smile.

"It always rains on Arkanis. Jakku was something of a shock to the system - not that we stayed long." It wasn't much, but she'd be damned if she let it slip away.

"I didn't realise you'd been to Jakku."

"Around thirty years ago, and I spent most of my time on a ship, but yes." Rey laughed. "What's so amusing?"

"Nothing, really. Just that this is almost like a normal conversation."

"This is nothing like a normal conversation." She suspected that, for Hux, that was true of any conversation that didn't involve him barking orders.

"You might want to rethink your idea of normal now." Along with a few other things, but they had to start somewhere if they were going to figure anything out.

And perhaps that somewhere was his homeworld.

* * *

The familiar scent of salt and ozone told Hux he was on Arkanis, but the cantina Rey had dragged him to couldn't be further from the childhood home he remembered. He supposed it was the kind of place members of the Resistance would be all too used to - a haven for shady characters and criminal activity. By the time Rey had ordered drinks, she'd already been forced to subdue one of the locals. Hux had complained that a blaster would have been a more efficient means of suppression, but he had to admit that she fought with a grace and discipline Ren had lacked. Rey's movements were practised, and she fought with her saber as if it was an extension of her own self, while Ren had always seemed to be fighting _against_ everything. Everything about their techniques was so opposed that it was strange to think they'd both trained with Skywalker. Of course, scarcely anything seemed to make any damned _sense_ when it came to the Force.

Rey wrinkled her nose at her ale, then gulped down a mouthful anyway.

"And I thought the water on Jakku had a bad aftertaste." Hux looked at the greasy smears on his glass and decided that even the finest Arkanisian red wouldn't be worth exposing oneself to that amount of bacteria.

"Couldn't you have found us a room somewhere _else_?"

"No. Besides, you find out more in places like this." Her eyes flickered towards the droid bartender, speaking quietly to a tall zabrak customer with golden horns and a prosthetic arm.

"Nothing we _want_ to know about," Hux sniffed. He had no doubt that this zabrak was an undesirable type. Rey smirked.

"There's no need to glare at him. He just works in cybernetics."

"Hmm." That made him potentially more interesting than the rest of the common thugs at the bar, but Hux still had his doubts about the zabrak's character. He was, after all, in a place like _this._ ..just as _he_ was, he reminded himself with a sigh.

"Speaking of droids," Rey added, suddenly finding her glass empty. "The one you were building...did you ever finish it?"

"Why are you so interested?" At least she was _asking_ him instead of simply trying to pluck whatever information she wanted from his mind. But after all the personal questions she'd asked on the journey - what his mother did, whether he had siblings, and so on - he was beginning to tire of her needling. "It was just something I did to pass the time, nothing more." Even to his own ears, his tone was overly defensive, and Rey's dismissive shrug was all the more irritating for it.

"I like building things, too." She patted the lightsaber at her hip, concealed beneath her cloak as if it hadn't been in her hand half an hour ago. "And I like droids." Such a deceptively simple answer. Hux knew enough about scheming to know she was up to _something_ , but it had been a long day and he was too tired to argue with her - better to let her believe the matter was of no consequence to him.

He glanced back towards the zabrak with the golden horns, still happily chatting with the droid. Now that he'd turned around, Hux could appreciate that his features were rather striking. Sharp cheekbones and soft, blue lips. Perhaps _that_ was what had drawn Rey's attention. He felt the heat spreading from his ears to his cheeks as she caught him looking, a ridiculous grin plastered across her face.

"I'm going to bed," he announced, wishing he'd kept quiet as the smile shifted into another smirk.

She was _insufferable._

* * *

Rey had expected him to kick up more of a fuss upon discovering their shared room only had one bed, but Hux hadn't been especially bothered. Though the Resistance base on Ajan Kloss was quieter now that the war with the First Order had fizzled out into skirmishes, there'd been times in the past when there were more people than places to sleep. She'd grown accustomed to sharing a bed or sleeping bag with Rose, Kaydel, and Finn (on the occasions Poe wasn't already occupying that space).

Still, when she came to the room she'd rented above the cantina and found Hux already asleep in the bed, she wrapped herself in a spare blanket she'd brought, and flopped down onto the brightly striped rag rug. It was comfortable enough and muffled the sounds of merriment and laughter that came from below. She shook her head and chuckled again, covering her mouth with the corner of her blanket, as she thought back to Hux's reaction to the zabrak at the bar. Well, she couldn't really blame him. She shuffled until the bumpy surface of the rug seemed to caress her, and closed her eyes.

When Rey woke she was cold, yet her skin was clammy and her clothes were soaked, infused with the smells of salt and sweat. She still heard the echoes of a red haired boy screaming for his mother, grasping for a mechanical hand. She looked over to the bed, and saw Hux's outline trembling. She couldn't know for sure until she asked but, based on what she'd just dreamed about, she was pretty sure she could guess which one of _her_ memories he'd relived. She wiped the tears from her own eyes, then shimmied out of her damp clothes and slipped into the bed behind Hux. He didn't object when she draped an arm around him, and she found herself pleasantly surprised when his fingers interlocked with hers.

The second time she woke, it was peaceful. Hux had rolled over in his sleep, and was now facing her, snoring softly. At some point his hand had ended up on her hip, and she cursed her past self for not having the foresight to change into fresh clothing during the night. Well, at least he was only in _his_ underwear, too. And he didn't snore like Kaydel, who often sounded like she was doing her best impression of a loth cat drowning in porridge.

Rey watched as his eyelashes fluttered, hoping he was having more pleasant dreams. Without any product, his hair was soft and had a slight wave, and for the first time she noticed the light sprinkling of freckles on his cheeks. She hesitated as his eyes opened, torn on whether or not she should pretend to be asleep.

"Morning," she said awkwardly, her decision apparently made. Hux's eyes went wide, and he quickly withdrew his hand from her hip.

* * *

Hux remembered Rey sliding into bed next to him. Remembered her embracing him, remembered _welcoming_ it. None of that remembering made it any less awkward that he'd woken up with his hand on her hip and a rather uncomfortable erection. Thankfully, she didn't seem to have noticed the latter. But rather than moving away from him, she only shuffled closer when he retracted his hand.

"It's cold," she said, as if that explained everything. He rolled his eyes as she began to giggle.

"That is a perfectly _natural_ bodily function, and nothing to do with-"

"Dreaming about that zabrak at the bar?" The giggles descended into snorts as she snuggled in even closer, her loose hair tickling his chest.

"Shut up _,_ " he hissed, though there was no real venom in it. Even he could tell Rey's teasing was good-natured, if frustrating. He touched her hair, and she stopped laughing.

"Make me." His fingers froze in her hair, and his breathing faltered. "Oh, _R'iia's breath_!" With that, her hands were on his cheeks, and her lips were on his, dry and chapped. Suddenly, she pulled back.

"Sorry, was that- sometimes I misread situations and-" Hux shook his head, and gently pressed his lips against hers again. She squeezed his hand as the kiss deepened, and he held back a whimper when he felt the wet warmth of Rey's tongue in his mouth, and again when she wrapped a strong, muscular leg around his waist. Reluctantly, he broke the kiss.

"As pleasant as this is, I...need to shower." A cold shower. He seriously doubted that hot water was a luxury on offer here, anyway.

"Good idea." Rey lifted the leg pinning him down. "After all, we have a busy day ahead of us."

"Do we, now?" Rey grinned.

"Oh, yes. A very important mission. We're going _droid hunting._ " Hux felt something strange then, like the tug of a thread drawing them closer together.

"Hmm." He pushed a few stray hairs behind her ear, and kissed her forehead. "It's been thirty years. I'm sure they won't mind a couple more minutes."


End file.
